Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons (although most of them being "money"), it's taken me till now to get here. But with a baby on the way in Jan (have I mentioned that? I don't think I have as I haven't blogged since I found out) I thought it should be something I'd better get off the bucket list while it's easier.
In a way I've gradually worked up to the Ed fringe. For the last couple of years I've been attending the Camden Fringe in London. A much smaller (although growing every year) festival with a similar array of types of show: plays, musicals, stand-up, dance.
So, this year I took the plunge: booked accomedation, flights and pre-booked some tickets to shows (making sure to leave room in my schedule to discover stuff while I was there)
And I've made it through my first day. And boy was it a long day! Up at 4am to leave the house by 5 to get to Gatwick and catch plane at 7am. We were in Edinburgh City centre by 10am already tired and ready for caffeine. But not before paying a quick visit to the half price hut to pick up a bargin.
That Bargin was well worth it too. Tortoise in a Nutshell productions' "Ferall" was a brilliantly inventive show that used puppetry, multi-media filming, soundscapes and drawings to tell a moving tale of Britain's seaside towns in decline. The puppet town (gradually built up piece by piece in the first third of the show) is expertly filmed live and projected up on a screen in such a cinematic way, utilising multiple camera, transitions between then as well as pans and sweeps . It much have taken a lot of planning and practice.
Next up was a talk on Arthur Conan-Doyle which I can't tell you much about ..... Because I was mostly dozzing off during it. Whether this was due to my 4am start or the content of the talk I'm honestly not sure.
Finally though we could check in to our accomedation. Which we promptly did and had a bit of a much needed siesta.
Back into town for the early evening we checked out the BBC area (checking up on my lovely employers). Their area is a really nice one to go to just to relax. As well as their main ticketed event tent they have the "pink tent" with seating, a small stage for a programme of free events and bookshelves full of books if you feel like whiling away the time. Also in their area are food stalls, a bar, table tennis and a free greenscreen photo booth that I defiantly plan on coming back to have a go at.
They even had funky branded headphones to listen to the large outdoor sceen they had. Look, here me in all my BBC branded glory, doing my bit for my employers.
We had pre-booked tickets to the evening for Al Murray. We used to watch his weekly show 6 or so years ago and always were in fits if laughter watching it. So it had been the first thing we had pre-booked coming here. We weren't disappointed. Al Murray was as ever very funny as the pub landlord character with ever so slightly out dated views who you'd be slightly nervous to have as a real friend and yet can't help chuckling along to many of the things he says.
So, after that, at this point it was only 9:30. Part of the reason I had booked an early flight was to be able to pack a whole days worth of shows in... But we had been up since 4am and despite a couple of Naps through the day I do still have a pregnant wife who was starting to get a bit grumpy about me dragging her from venue to venue. It was time to call it an early night, and save the real packed day for tommorow......
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